Nate Silver team’s final prediction for US election: ‘Polls are close, results might not be’ – Times of India

Nate Silver earlier accused the pollsters of putting their fingers on the scale.

Poll guru Nate Silver‘s Silver Bulletin has revealed its final prediction a day ahead of the polls and said the White House battle will be a “pure toss-up”. Former president Donald Trump has a 51.5 per cent chance of winning while vice president Kamala Harris has a 48.1 per cent chance. His prediction took note of the final battleground polls from Morning Consult and The New York Times.
The latest NYT/Sienna polls said Kamala Harris is in the lead in four out of the seven swing states — Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Harris and Trump are tied in Michigan and Pennsylvania and Trump is ahead in Arizona.
The Morning Consult poll favors Donald Trump as it shows him slightly ahead in three battleground states — Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin; and tied in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
The polls are close but that doesn’t mean results will be, Silver Bulletin analyst Eli Mckown-Dawson wrote. He wrote that Silver Bulletin’s forecast has been hovering around 50/50 since mid-September, Trump gained ground in mid-October and Harris regained just a little bit now. “…However, that doesn’t mean the actual outcome will be all that close. If the polls are totally accurate we’re in for a nail-biter on Tuesday night. But a systematic polling error is always possible, perhaps especially if you think pollsters are herdinhg — only publishing results that match the consensus. And because things are so close, even an average polling error would upend the state of the race.”
“Now it’s important to note that polling error runs in both directions, and it’s pretty much impossible to predict which way it will go ahead of time. Harris could beat her polls or we could be in for a third Trump miss. But both scenarios have one thing in common: they’d turn election night into a relative blowout.”